


taipei

by novoaa1



Series: chance encounters [2]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Awesome Natasha Romanov, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Blood and Injury, F/F, Guns, POV Natasha Romanov, Protective Natasha Romanov, Violence, bickering girlfriends, grumpy yelena belova, on a mission doin mission things, stealing cars, you know how it be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24994090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novoaa1/pseuds/novoaa1
Summary: “What thefuckare you—"“Look, can we fight about this later?” Natalia interjects, pointedly ignoring the scathing look Yelena sends her way. “We need to grab some clothes.” She nods to the thrift store up ahead. “The safe house is three blocks east.”“Safe house?!” Yelena sounds utterly enraged.Natalia ignores her, instead reaching back to grab a blue baseball cap from the backseat (its front stitched with stylistic Chinese font in white thread) before tossing it into Yelena’s lap.“Wear that. You have blood in your hair.”Yelena scowls, but Natalia doesn’t let it deter her.
Relationships: Yelena Belova & Natasha Romanov, Yelena Belova/Natasha Romanov
Series: chance encounters [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1809355
Comments: 5
Kudos: 43





	taipei

**Author's Note:**

> uhhhh im a bit obsessed with this pairing at the current moment idk what else to say
> 
> also proofreading is for whiners but if you find a glaring mistake please let me know i will fix it dklfjd

**Taipei, 1995**

It’s pure happenstance that she's there—Wanhua, Taipei’s oldest district, just shy of a month after President Lee Teng-hui issues a public apology for the February 28 “incident” (read: massacre), the first official acknowledgement since 1947. 

They’re there for vastly different reasons (predictably)—Yelena under orders from Russia, tracking a contract hit that neutralized a high-ranking SVR officiant in early February; Natalia drawn in by rumors of children slaughtered on the streets, alleged victims of a rapidly-growing sex trafficking ring governed by one of the three predominant Taiwanese criminal triads. 

Their paths converge at the governing refuge for UGB operations, a largely underground structure accessible by way of two separate restaurants (serving as fronts for the Triad) approximately three blocks apart. 

Yelena has (presumably) traced the contracted hit back to the Bamboo Union triad, just as Natalia has linked the sex trafficking murders to the same culprit. 

For better or worse, Yelena gets there first. 

50 minutes later, Natalia charges into a bloodbath at UGB headquarters—short-range snipers posted up in nearby buildings. Tranq darts littering the singed flooring at her feet. Bulky Taiwanese men with curious beetle-shaped intravenous blood filters (containing fluorescent-orange goo that really can’t mean anything but more headaches for her) adhered to their inner forearms. There’s murder in their eyes, and frothy liquid dribbling down their chins. 

She doesn’t wish to fight them, but at a certain point, it’s unavoidable. 

Yelena is nowhere to be seen, and considering the circumstances, Natalia knows far better than to presume that means she made it out.

She dances around them for a while, avoiding their clumsy blows and mentally cataloguing every exploitable weakness. She’s moving far too erratically to get a shot off, but she does: a pair of well-placed bullets fells two of the hulking assailants in a matter of seconds. 

Two down. 

Still, a solid hit from at least one of the remaining four is inevitable. After all, there’s too many of them, only one of her, and the space isn’t terribly large—6 x 6 meters (20’ x 20’) at best.

She sees the swing coming, knows it’s not one she'll be quick enough to dodge in time. 

She tightens her grip around the gun, then exercises all of her remaining energy into twisting her hips and redirecting her momentum a split second before— 

_Crack!_

Pain explodes in her left cheek, and she knows the bone is fractured—but it’s far better fractured than shattered, and she’ll take what she can get. 

She dodges another swing, then drops into a roll along the wall and comes up firing: three bullets right between the brows of three gargantuan attackers.

Five down. 

Natalia doesn’t get to see them fall; she knows the second-and-a-half she took to neutralize three of the four remaining targets was a second-and-a-half too long, and when lucky Number 4 grabs her by the arm and heaves her through a solid brick column across the room, there’s no shock to dull the agony that follows. 

She just barely manages to tuck her head beneath her arm such that her right shoulder weathers the brunt of initial impact, but there’s no escaping the sheer force of the hit—bones crack, agony erupts inside her, and her vision begins to blacken around the edges. 

Suddenly, she’s sprawled across the floor amidst a generous scattering of ash-grey dust and crumbled brick, blinking back the dark spots dancing in her vision as a smirking giant draws near. 

The door isn’t far—2.5 meters (~8 feet) at most, but there’s a wall of muscle between it and her, a million aches compromising her awareness, and a gun held tightly in her trembling grip—

_A gun_. 

7 more bullets. 

She props herself up on her left elbow with a whimper of pain, then draws blood from her lower lip to stifle an agonized scream as she positions her right forearm to rest atop her left palm. 

The shattered bones in her right shoulder grind painfully together with every shift; her right arm trembles violently as she fingers the trigger. 

A large, calloused palm reaches down to rip the pistol from her grasp and—

_Bang!_

A perfect shot, right between the brows. 

Lucky Number 4 stumbles back on his feet, brown eyes bulging. Natalia doesn’t hear him fall. 

She doesn’t hear _anything_ beyond her own pants of ragged breath, the blare of an un-silenced gunshot ringing in her ears. 

She curses Yelena’s name bitterly as she pulls herself to her feet, then stumbles her way over to the door. 

When she finds her slumped against the wall in the next room, out cold, she has half a mind to walk back out and leave her there to die, injuries and all—bisque-blonde locks matted with blood; a ring of raw, irritated red skin encircling her neck that will likely bruise by morning; an unnatural set to her posture that tells Natalia her left shoulder is likely dislocated. 

She doesn’t, of course. 

(She never could.)

☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥

There’s an obnoxious bubblegum-pink Daewoo Matiz parked agains the curb a block down. She chooses it because it’s loud, unexpected of two battered Widows stealing away into the night; she chooses it because it’s tacky, and on principle, she can’t help but hate it. 

She chooses it because it’s close, and Yelena seems to grow heavier by the minute, and Natalia knows she is minutes away from collapsing on the spot if she continues to exert this irrefutably unsustainable amount of energy with every step. 

Thus, the obnoxious bubblegum-pink Daewoo Matiz it is. 

She bypasses the driver’s side locking mechanism with a miniaturized (but still very much effective) slim jim she keeps sheathed between her shoulder blades, shoves a still-out-cold Yelena over the center console into the passenger’s seat, and gets to work starting the car. 

It’s comforting, the routine of it—habitual and almost prosaic in the best possible way:

Feel for screws along the steering column; remove the plastic trim to expose the ignition switch; remove the bolts and/or screws mounting the ignition switch to the steering column; remove the screws holding the wired electrical panel and mechanical component pieces of the ignition switch together; insert flathead screw-driver (or something close to it) into the keyhole, turn clockwise to start. 

Two minutes in, the weak (but sufficient) car engine purrs to life, and they’re in business: pulling away from the curb, cruising languidly down the street (so as not to arouse suspicion), mentally mapping out a route to the nearest (and only) safe house of hers on the island—a small third-story apartment in the East District of Hsinchu. 85-86 kilometers from Taipei; just over an hour-long drive, depending on traffic. 

She fashions a make-shift cast from a plain red T-shirt in the backseat, uses it to secure her right arm to her fractured clavicle at a stop-light. 

It presents a unique challenge, driving with only her left hand—not unprecedented, necessarily, but certainly not comfortable, either. 

20 minutes in, she debates rousing Yelena, entreating the younger woman for help—a minute later, she decides against it. She isn’t in the mood for a screaming match at the current moment, and won’t be for at least another half hour. 

Natalia’s broken cheekbone throbs, her shoulder screams with every jostle along the way, and she knows damn well there are about 101 more injuries littering her body that she can’t bear to think about right now… so, she doesn’t. 

Right now, she has a single objective—getting Yelena and herself safely to Hsinchu. 

And that's exactly what she intends to do. 

☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥

Yelena wakes as Natalia pulls them into a curbside parking space three blocks down from the safe house. 

“Oh, good, you’re awake. I was beginning to worry I’d have to carry you the rest of the way."

Yelena glares daggers at her while she shifts the car into park. 

_Any moment now_ , she thinks. 

“You shouldn’t be here, Natalia,” Yelena hisses, her voice gravelly and hoarse. 

_There it is_.

“You’re welcome,” Natalia mutters back even as she begins carefully scanning their surroundings, looking for—

Oh, good. Three shops down—a thrift store. (Or something close to it, anyhow.)

“What the _fuck_ are you—"

“Look, can we fight about this later?” Natalia interjects, pointedly ignoring the scathing look Yelena sends her way. “We need to grab some clothes.” She nods to the thrift store up ahead. “The safe house is three blocks east.”

“Safe house?!” Yelena sounds utterly enraged. 

Natalia ignores her, instead reaching back to grab a blue baseball cap from the backseat (its front stitched with stylistic Chinese font in white thread) before tossing it into Yelena’s lap. 

“Wear that. You have blood in your hair.” Yelena scowls, but Natalia doesn’t let it deter her. "We’re American tourists, _da_ ? Sisters.” Yelena’s hazel eyes flash with something like righteous indignation at that, and Natalia can’t help but smirk. "Immigrated from Russia to the States when we were teens, now traveling the world on Daddy’s dime.” 

Yelena wrinkles her nose, pretty features pinched like she’s just swallowed something sour. “Daddy’s _what_ ?”

☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥ ☥

**Author's Note:**

> (my [tumblr](https://psyches.co.vu/) or just search me up @ultralightdumbass cause i'm on there a lot more often!)


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